TRAIN operator London Midland has had its knuckles rapped over rail services in Birmingham.

The company that runs a range of local rail services as well as direct trains from New Street to London Euston has been told to bring its performance up to ‘acceptable standards’.

A report from the West Midlands passenger transport authority Centro says high levels of cancellations and a shortage of train crew has lead to a decline in rail services.

It states: “The performance of local London Midland rail services...has shown a marked decline on the Birmingham New Street lines compared to the previous period.

“There had been a significant fall in the reliability with 5.8 per cent of services being cancelled or part-cancelled during the period, as well as a high level of evening peak cancellations on the Walsall line.”

Centro’s Transport Strategy Committee resolved that “London Midland must be urged to take action to bring up performance to acceptable standards.”

The Committee also resolved that Centro’s lead member of Rail and Metro Operations would meet with London Midland’s managing director. The purpose for this would be to “discuss an action plan for corrective action and report back to the Authority on the outcome of this meeting.”

The report states that the figures refer to a period which was between Christmas and New Year.

This was also the time when a revised rail timetable was introduced across the West Midlands to help train operators cope with ‘leaves on the line’ and which already saw services reduced. A London Midland spokesman said: “This was a period of great change with new routes, such as the Trent Valley line, coming into operation. Staff also worked new shift patterns. However, we recognised our level of performance was not acceptable and we apologised as well as making changes. The level of performance has increased. A week after this period services running into Snow Hill, for example, were well above our punctuality targets.”